International Trade Committee on April 10th, 2014

[Tasleem Thawar]

Well, as my dad always used to say, if Bob jumps off a cliff and if Julie jumps off a cliff, are you going to jump off a cliff too? I think we really need to think about what it could possibly mean to increase our involvement in a country where these kinds of human rights abuses are happening.

Are we saying “don't engage with Honduras at all”? No. What we're saying is that if you're going to ride the bike, wear a helmet, because there are many, many human rights violations occurring currently that, certainly from my perspective, I would find to be quite a risk.

As you can tell from our recommendations, PEN has no opinion on who Canada really does trade with. What we're concerned about is that, in the work Canada does in the countries we engage with, we shouldn't be making the situations worse. In fact, we should be safeguarding the lives and the rights of the people of Honduras, as well as, in the process, really thinking about what Canadian values are and what kinds of values we want to be promoting abroad.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Pacetti, the floor is yours.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses; it's very interesting.

I have quite a few questions; I'm not even sure where to start.

I guess I'll start with you, Ms. Spring. And it's a little bit of a different question, but did you say you live there, in Honduras?

[Karen Spring]

On and off, but for majority of the last five years, I've been living in Honduras.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

And how is the situation in terms of being female? Let's call a spade a spade. How do you feel? Do you feel comfortable, especially in conducting you work? I assume you're doing your type of work in that environment. Do you feel threatened; do you feel unsafe?

[Karen Spring]

Absolutely. There's the general violence in the country. I've definitely noticed the fear in the population increase in the last two years. I, myself, have been robbed on many occasions, and I've been followed by Canadian companies or people working with Canadian companies in the regions where I've worked.

And so absolutely, I definitely—

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Sorry, I don't want to interrupt, but I have limited time.

When you conduct your work, for example, for some of the information you were talking about with Gildan, do you actually go on site and see it with your own eyes? Are you under cover? How do you conduct your work?

[Karen Spring]

No, I have never gone into Gildan's factories. But I've examined a lot of documents Gildan has put out and published. And I work with the women who work with Gildan, specifically, on that subject.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I think you started to address some of the solutions. So what would be one of your major solutions to some of the points you brought up? You didn't state anything in your brief, but I think in answering Madame Liu or Mr. O'Toole's questions, you said there were a few solutions. Which would be your preference?

[Karen Spring]

I would say that a functioning justice system is absolutely critical.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

And towards our Canadian companies, what would be your solution? I take it that ergonomic classes would not be enough, in terms of having somebody representing those companies there? I'm not sure the solution to not have Canadian companies in Honduras would be the good one.

[Karen Spring]

Once again, I would probably say that if there are complaints from Gildan workers against the company, they need to be mediated by a justice system. And if they're not mediated by a justice system in Honduras, then those workers should have the opportunity to come to Canadian courts and have some sort of hearing or something related to addressing their complaints.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you.

Madame Cheung, in terms of your declaration that, with the violence and the threats, the justice system is not being abided by, is it because there's no willingness to abide by the law or is it just an inability? I know there's a nuance, but is there an inability or just not wanting to? Or is it the people there, or do you feel that the human rights issues are coming from top to bottom?

[Carmen Cheung]

I think it's a combination of both. I think certainly Honduras suffers from a severe lack of resources. But one of the major questions we had in our report is how those resources get allocated. Is it truly a lack of resources, or is it a selective allocation of resources? And in our view, there are a lot of things that suggest it's a selective allocation of resources.

If that's the case, then it is an unwillingness to investigate, to enforce. The state creates institutions that it simply doesn't fund. It has a human rights ombudsperson to whom it provides very little money. It creates prosecutorial offices that it funds for certain types of investigations, but not for human rights investigations. So for us, that strongly suggests an unwillingness.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Thawar, what would your feeling be? One of your first recommendations was to have freedom of the press. Madame Spring recommends a good justice system. What would be your preference? Where would the money be best invested?

The officials who were here this week said they put money in development; but there are no benchmarks, so there are no conditions tied to that money. It's money invested—I'm not saying they're not doing their job—but there's no benchmark, no results coming out at the end or indication of where they want to end up, and I think I have a problem with that. I want to hear what your opinion is.

[Tasleem Thawar]

I guess there are two things. There are two ways to respond. The first is, what is really at the root of this failure of freedom of the press, or freedom of expression in Honduras? It's also at the root of the justice problems that Ms. Spring was talking about. Really this is a large, widespread institutional failure in Honduras. In addition to selective allocation of resources, in addition to simply not resourcing institutions that we would take as a matter of course in our country, there's also corruption.

These are institutions that first of all are unable to, but also if you look at the history of what has happened in Honduras, institutions are set up so that the Honduran government can say they have a special prosecutor whereas behind the scenes they're actually not funding them at all. There's also this ability to say they're working with Canada on this or we're working with the States on that or this particular international organization is helping us do this, which allows them to really diffuse their responsibility for what it is that they should be doing.

I don't know if Carmen can speak a little bit more to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Our time is pretty well gone, but you may have a chance on the follow-up questioning.

Mr. Hoback, the floor is yours.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you ladies for being here this afternoon.

You've just really confirmed what a lot of people have been saying about the situation in Honduras and what's been going on on the ground there and what the history has been like in Honduras these past years.

Ms. Spring, you talked about Gildan a little bit. I actually toured Gildan's facility or one of the facilities in Honduras. You talked about—help me out—the number was 30 or 40 workers who were having issues with repetitive movements and creating muscle cramps. What was that?

[Karen Spring]

Musculoskeletal disorders.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So you've got 30 or 40 workers. You said there were another 100 workers who were experiencing other problems.

[Karen Spring]

That's in the broader apparel and textile industry.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So out of 24,000 workers, how does that really relate? Is that something that you would see out of 24,000 workers on average, that you'd have a certain percentage who would come down with that type of situation? Because when Gildan was here yesterday, they talked about how they pay substantially higher than minimum wage. It might be done on a per product basis.

I know companies in Saskatchewan that make seeding equipment, they pay on a per product basis. So if you put out 20 shanks, you get paid 20 shanks. If you put out 15 shanks, you get paid for 15 shanks. You can call them widgets, whatever you want. Regardless though, the wage they get paid at the end of the day is substantially higher than what the minimum wage would be.

I guess I'm just kind of looking at what Gildan's been telling us and what you're saying and how do you reconcile that? How do you find the difference? Because when I look at Gildan there, I mean I toured the facilities. I'm sure if I took that facility after touring it there and went to a facility here in Canada, I probably would have similar statistics as far as repetitive motions and issues as far as health care issues and complaints against the company. It's a Canadian company whether it's based in Canada or based in Honduras.

How do you compare it to, let's say, an industry average? I'm just looking at Gildan because there are all sorts of other issues that I think if you looked at other companies in Honduras.... If there's a Chinese company for example, it may not even be concerned about these 30 or 40 workers, but if you went to Gildan, I'm pretty sure they'd say that they're very concerned and they're looking for a way to move forward on it. So how would you respond to that?

[Karen Spring]

Those are the 30 or 40 cases that one particular organization have taken that are working or are processing, or they're in a legal process with the workers. Those are workers who have come forward with their health problems. There are only two ways in which Gildan workers can seek medical attention. One is in the health facilities inside the factory and another is the Honduran—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So they have health facilities inside the factory. How many other factories would have health facilities? I'll take a factory here in Canada again. There are no health facilities inside a factory. So the fact that that's there, isn't that a credit to Gildan's work and their corporate social responsibility?

[Karen Spring]

I just finished my research on occupational health and safety and there are a lot of concerns with health clinics based in factories that are paid for by the employer. This is an issue for the CODEMUH, the organization that represents the Gildan workers, that the data regarding musculoskeletal disorders are not being made public. The Honduran social insurance hospital has also stated that, that they've actually had to find specialists more—